Customer Reviews

Love For Sale: A World History of Prostitution

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very recent look at an old topic. The author, Nils Johan Ringdal, has written about Germans and the Norwegian police in World War II, but has been collecting information about prostitution for so long that the final 30 pages of the books are references, ending with a page of movies. People who have hoped that condoms might be useful to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases will wonder what the Los Angeles police were thinking in 1990 when Gloria Lockett, now an activist, bought twelve dozen condoms in a drugstore, walked outside, and the police "grabbed her purse and shook it upside down. Then they punctured every single condom, one by one, pushing the knife down into the latex membrane, slowly and with great enjoyment. Gloria got her purse back, along with a pile of useless rubber." (p. 401). This book does not have an index, but the short "Quotes and References" for each chapter at the end of the book includes the King James English Bible verses used in Chapters 2, Patriarchs and Priestesses, and 7, Repentant Sinners, with a few references from the Qu'ran for Chapter 9, Muhammad's Women. There is no Table of Contents for finding anything at the beginning of the book, but pictures appear between pages 150 and 151, just before Chapter 11, Celestial Whores, and between pages 310 and 311. The page facing 311 shows most of the world for two maps, "The origin and early spread of prostitution 3000 B.C. - 1000 B.C." and "Migration of Prostitutes 1914" (European women and Japanese women, loosely taken from Ronald Hyam). The second map shows four arrows pointing directly at Shanghai, one of which is from San Francisco, but the arrow in the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco is labeled "To Hong Kong from Shanghai." Page 311 itself is interesting for the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turks. "When the grand harem of Constantinople closed down in 1909, 370 wives and attendants and 127 eunuchs became homeless. The deposed sultan was allowed to take a few favorites into exile in Salonica. The others were set free."

This book is highly aware that "Sex and reproduction, happiness and security, have, to an almost absurd degree, become themes of public debate in Europe and the U.S., though the discourse is political and not moral. Hypocrisy and ambiguous argument rule the day." (p. 3). Trying to find a frame of reference that recognizes any individual's rights is far less clear than opting for personal viewpoints: "Nobody has the right to sex, either unpaid or in exchange for payment: If nobody wants to sell sex, it is a crime to force anyone to do so. But when men or women do want to sell their bodies, they should have that full right without encountering punishment or discrimination. If the client behaves decently, the relationship between the sex buyer and the sex seller must be considered a purely private transaction." (pp. 3-4). Striving to find limits that satisfy political economy and the ethical interests of people who avoid such activity as a matter of principle make this a tough issue in the field of philosophy, and Chapter 4, Greek Liberalism, begins with the philosopher Socrates drinking hemlock "surrounded by his young male admirers, such as the young Phaedon of Elis, who had just purchased his freedom from a brothel." (p. 52). Possibly Socrates was not the greatest Greek, since "Solon founded Western democracy." (p. 54). "But Solon is also the father of the sex industry, and his sexual reforms were closely linked to his other reforms." (p. 55). "The sex industry quickly became a lucrative supplemental income for Athens and stole an important section of the market from the previously very popular Ephesus in Asia Minor, where a more old-fashioned, temple-related prostitution was still practiced." (p. 55). The emphasis, "Men dominated Greek urban society," (p. 55) is in contrast with the earlier period studied by Johann Jacob Bachofen, Lewis Morgan, and the Communist Friedrich Engels. "Bachofen argued that humankind had shifted away from the promiscuous freedom of the horde, through matriarchy, to patriarchy, a form of society that he considered to have developed in Mesopotamia, with Jewish, Egyptian, Roman, Indian, and Chinese variants." (p. 5). The mixture of cultures is particularly noticeable in the field of prostitution. "Many feel that foreign and racially different prostitutes are tangible symbols of a world that is becoming a moral cesspool." (p. 385). This kind of history is likely to promote the belief that law itself is an intellectual cesspool when it attempts to deal with such situations by locking people up to stifle economic activity in a world where guys make most of the money, but supporting women and children is a low priority, as Socrates was partly condemned for not spending his time at work making money. The quality of Socrates' questions might be considered a higher intellectual level than the modern economic observation, "As the demand for cheap prostitutes grew and recruitment failed, the vacancies had to be filled with imported foreign labor." (p. 384). This is now a very large field for the number of people employed, and transportation is one of the conveniences of a global economy. This book reflects all that perfectly.

Norwegian historian Nils Johan Ringdal traces the history of what is, if not the oldest profession, at least the most notorious, and covers just about everything: he begins with world literature's first lady of the night, found in the 4,000-year-old epic of Gilgamesh, includes a chapter on the nature of the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, shows how ancient Greece and Rome incorporated prostitutes into several social echelons, and how the rise of the courtesan in nineteenth-century Europe shaped literature (e.g Zola's Nana), fashion, arts, and modern sensibility. It tells the stories of the British Empire's campaigns against prostitution in India, and of the "comfort women" who served the armies in the Pacific theater of World War II. It closes with the rise of the sex-workers' rights movement and "sex-positive" feminism, and a look at risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day. Nevertheless, Ringdal's tone is so matter-of-fact that at times it seems more like a recital than a narration.

Ringdal illustrates prostitution's pragmatic benefits, which have dwindled only recently with the sexual revolution (with the advent of birth control and the women's movement, prostitution has lost its basic functions as a pastime and a training ground for young men; even so, women willing to have sex for money continued to fill pragmatic roles up to the present).

In fact, he assures us, the prostitute was regarded as nothing less than "a guarantor and stabilizer of morality and matrimony" until Victorian times; it was only during the Victorian era, with its emphasis on individual morality, that prostitution took on the cloak of sin. In his opinion, no one is entitled to sex -- paid or unpaid. But, if both parties agree that one will sell sex to the other and if both parties behave decently, then prostitution should be considered a private transaction.

This is a subject crying out for a well-written and moderately scholarly history, or at least an excellent popular history. This book is unfortunately neither of these. The translation is very poor (I assume that it is accurate - it is only the English prose that is poor.) There is virtually no documentation. And the book does not address the history of prostitution per se, only episodes, some of which are more convincing than others.

I can only assume most historians are squeamish about this subject, so all credit to Mr. Ringdal for trying.

I recommend that readers seeking to learn about the impact of or reaction to prostitution look to more defined histories. A good book along those lines is "Sin in the Second City".

Occasionally I read something that exceeds my highest expectations and "Love For Sale" is just such a book. It offers an excellent look at the history of prostitution from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day. Each chapter addresses a particular subject in a different historical era. For example, Ringdal discusses the well-educated and socially graceful prostitutes of classical Greece. These "high class hookers" provided both intellectual stimulation and sexual pleasure for Greek men in a society where most women were confined to domestic duties and hardly even allowed outside of the home. Other chapters include the Roman Empire, early Islam, China, India, the European Middle Ages, the American Wild West and the "sex positive" feminism of the contemporary sex worker's movement. Throughout the book Ringdal impresses with both his extensive knowledge and his perceptive insights on the history of the "world's oldest profession."

The current reality is that prostitution continues to exist thoughout the globe just as it has during the course of human history. Some countries, like the Netherlands, Germany and Costa Rica, have established enlightened public policies which have legalized prostitution, required regular AIDS tests and attempted to keep pimps out of the business. These sensible regulations have been helpful in protecting both the sex workers and the general public. In other countries, prostitution remains officially illegal but widely tolerated. This is true in most of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is only in the more extremist Muslim countries of the Middle East that prostitution is consistently and brutally oppressed. Unfortunately, here in the United Sates, with our Puritan/Victorian heritage, we continue to waste taxpayer money and police resources trying to stop the exchange of sex for money between consenting adults - a silly and pointless task that intrudes on personal freedom and has yet to be successfully achieved in the history of humanity.

In fact, this book does an excellent job of demonstrating how often it has been female prostitutes who have managed to obtain a certain degree of freedom, self-determination and financial independence in patriarchal societies. Meanwhile, more "honorable" women have often been forced to rely economically on their husbands and to submit to the social control of their male dominated societies. In this sense, prostitutes have been strong and fearless women unwilling to submit to the yoke of authority and tradition that required females to live homebound and as second class citizens. Of course, Ringdal is smart enough to know that life for the typical hooker is far from glamorous or easy. So he does also cover the hardships and exploitation these woman have suffered at the hands of pimps, slave traders and abusive customers. But the truth that emerges is that prostitutes are just people, like the rest of you, seeking out the best financial opportunity available to them. Ringdal neither glorifies them or condemns them. Rather he presents them simply as people worthy of respect and fair treatment as they attempt to make a living the best way they know how - just like the rest of us.

This is a great start, but unfortunately marred by bias and only partial documentation. This is storytelling, not exactly history. I found it frustrating when he would make an amazing assertion and I had no direct reference to trace it, just his bibliography. He has much in common with Herodotus, whose tales he accepts far too uncritically.

The title is an obvious misnomer and should read "Sex for Sale".

From a sacred liturgic function in the Ishtar Tradition of ancient Mesopotamia to a publicly quoted stock company in Australia (page 400): the history of prostitution (the word is usually etymologically derived from Latin "pro situ", "for the site", namely the temple) is an excellent illustration of the cyclic cultural descent of our dark or iron age.

Mr Ringdal attempted to write both an entertaining and historically serious book but, alas, failed to some extent in both. Anecdotes are mixed with historic assertions, seldom clearly delineated from each other, almost never documented by footnotes. One or more bibliographies at the end of the book do not make up for the inadequate scholarly handiwork.

Mr Ringdal's underlying approach to the subject matter, namely that in our contemporary society private sexual relations amongst consenting adults, including paid sexual services, are or should be outside the realm of governmental and / or ideological fundamentalist meddling, seems reasonable.

The book classifies itself above all as infotainment.

I ordered it and I got it two days later, I thought that was pretty fast. I haven't read it yet, but I am really excited :)